UPDATE 3 - Trial of Uighur men for Bangkok bombing postponed

UPDATES WITH MOTIVES IN LAST FOUR PARAS

By CS Thana

BANGKOK (AA) - Judges at Bangkok's military court have postponed the trial of two Uighur men on charges of involvement in last year's Bangkok bombing in order to track down a Turkic language speaker to translate for the duo.

On Tuesday, lawyers for Adem Karadag and Yusuf Mieraili -- who have denied the charges -- requested that the court delay the opening of the trial until Sept. 15 so they can find someone who speaks Uighur.

"We have petitioned the judge to formally request assistance from the World Uyghur Congress [WUC]," Karadag's lawyer Choochart Khanphai told Anadolu Agency after the opening day of the trial.

According to its website, the WUC's focus is to promote the right of the Uighur people to use peaceful, nonviolent, and democratic means to determine the political future of East Turkestan.

Many people refer to China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region -- home to many ethnic minority groups, including Turkic Uighur people -- as East Turkestan.

The search for a translator is understood to have began in early June, when the men's original translator, Uzbek man Sirojiddin Bakhodirov, was arrested by Thai police.

After arrest, Bakhodirov claimed he was being framed for helping the alleged bombers.

Uzbek and Uighur are dialects of the Turkic language family spoken by Turkic peoples from Southeast Europe and the Mediterranean to Siberia and Western China.

Judges also refused a request Tuesday from the defendants asking them to be moved from the special military prison where they are currently being held.

The court ruled that because the trial was a special case and "related to national security", they would continue to be housed away from others and remain in military custody.

Karadag -- who Khanphai claims is really named Bilal Mohammed -- and Mieraili have been charged with the Aug. 17 2015 bombing at a Hindu shrine in downtown Bangkok, which left 20 people dead and 125 others injured.

The two men last appeared at a Thai military court May 17, shackled, barefoot, and distraught.

Police have said that both suspects have confessed to being paid by a mastermind to build and plant the bomb, but Karadag’s lawyer has said his client was tortured into a confession by plainclothes men in military custody.

"My client was intimidated by these men. They were waterboarded, threatened with large dogs and threatened with deportation to China," Khanphai told reporters Jan. 16.

Uzbek and Uighur are dialects of the Turkic language family spoken by Turkic peoples from Southeast Europe and the Mediterranean to Siberia and Western China.

Both Karadag and Mieraili have refused to provide their addresses in China’s northwestern Xinjiang region out of “fear of reprisal" from the government, who the Muslim minority group accuses of curtailing their cultural and religious rights.

Karadag and Mieraili are the only two suspects arrested in the case, despite the fact that Thai authorities issued a list of over 15 -- with Thai, Turkish and Chinese nationalities -- in the first months of an investigation underlined as “confused” by some observers.

Several analysts have linked the bombing to the deportation in July 2015 -- a month before the bombing -- of 109 Uighur to China by the Thai junta.

The deportation raised international condemnation and demonstrations took place in front of the Thai consulate in Istanbul in Turkey, which is home to a large Uighur diaspora.

But Thai police have rejected the theory, alleging that the bombing was revenge by a human smuggling network unhappy about a crackdown by Thai authorities.